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Who is SSI?

The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College publishes national security and strategic research and analysis which serves to influence policy debate and bridge the gap between Military and Academia.

Publications Tagged: Zarqawi

The questions of how to empower the Iraqis most effectively and then progressively withdraw non-Iraqi forces from that country is one of the most important policy problems currently facing the United States. The authors seek to present the U.S. situation in Iraq in all of its complexity and ambiguity, with policy recommendations for how that withdrawal strategy might be most effectively implemented.

The author concludes that understanding the cultural and symbolic significance of terrorist beheadings is key to defeating them. He recommends political rituals such as elections, war crimes tribunals, and shura councils as countermeasures to affirm the legitimacy and authority of the new Iraqi government.

This study considers the regional consequences of intercommunal warfare in Iraq by examining how such an eventuality may develop and how neighboring states might become involved in such a conflict. This work does not predict an Iraqi civil war but rather views it as a worst-case eventuality. The danger of an Iraqi civil war requires serious U.S. cooperation with those regional states that also have a stake in preventing this outcome.